Water tournament - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The water tournament is a sport practiced primarily in France, Germany and Suisse, consistent with a confrontation between two jousters assembled on boats propelled by oarsmen or, according to the practiced method, by an engine. There exist several methods of tournaments according to the areas.

History

The oldest representations of water tournaments arrived to us are on low-reliefs dating from the old Egyptian empire (IIIe with VIe dynasties, -2780 to -2380). It would however seem to act more brawl rather than of leisures, considering that the confrontation proceeded without any protection with blunders provided with fittings with two points at their ends.

After Egyptian testimony one finds traces of water tournaments in ancient Greece. This civilization would have then introduced this practice in Sicily where Latin, large amateurs of spectacles in all kinds, adopted it from the start. Indeed, one finds an incalculable number of traces of tournaments under the Roman Empire, in particular at the time of the Naumachie S. It acted of nautical spectacles being held in arenas designed to be put out of water. According to any probability, the Romans diffused the tournaments in all their empire. Thus let us note a description of festival with Strasbourg in 303 in the honor of the emperor Dioclétien. Certain historians plead however in favor of an introduction of the tournaments as of the foundation of Massalia …

For the Roman epoch, it is necessary to wait the 12th century to re-examine water tournaments. It is possible that they survived during this period within communities close to water, but it was not made by it mention nowhere. The oldest document of the post-Latin time gives a report on a tournament of tournament in Lyon the June 2nd 1177, for the commemoration of the millenium of the Christian martyrs of Lyon and Vienna.

A document also reports to us that “in 1270 with Acute-Dead the crusaders, soldiers and sailors, awaiting the loading for the Holy Land with the king Louis IX (Saint Louis), clashed in singular combat assembled on light boats”.

The written or illustrated documents multiply as from the 15th century, giving a report on tournaments in the Sologne, with Toulon, and more generally on all the Mediterranean coastline. On the coast of the Languedoc, the tournaments are practiced regularly since the 17th century. The inauguration of the port of Sète thus gives place to a tournament of tournaments (1666).

Concerning the Rhone-Alps area, one announces the April 13rd 1507 that “the fishermen of St Vincent (Lyon) drew the oye and joustèrent, on the Saone to St-Jean to distract the queen Anne from Brittany and his people”. In 1536, a spectacle of tournaments is given by the marines to Saint-Just-Saint-Rambert (the Loire), in the honor of François Ier. One tournament also on the the Saone in 1548 for Henri II and Catherine de Médicis.

The 19th century is revolving in the history of the water tournaments on the Rhone. Companies are created. In the beginning, the goal of the companies was not firstly the practice of the water tournaments. It acted marines who grouped to carry help to the residents at the time of the frequent ones believed of the Rhone. They practiced the tournaments at the time of the local festivals, thus perpetuating the transmitted epic of generations in generations in this proud corporation of men of the river.

In 1899, is born the Federal union from the French companies of swimming and rescue, first structure accommodating the companies of rescue. The Union will organize in 1901 the first championship of France, certainly very rudimentary, on the lake of the gold Head in Lyon.

In 1905, the Union is replaced by the National federation of the companies of swimming and rescue, which organizes it also regional championships of France…!

1960 will have to be awaited so that the tournament is officially recognized like a sport by the government. The current federation (French federation of tournament and nautical rescue) was born in 1971 following a deep dissension with the old federation, which did not develop enough the tournament as a sport. This date marks also Jeunesse approval and sport, devoting thus truly the tournament as a sport.

Modern tournaments

Languedocien method

This method of tournaments is practiced in eight cities of Herault (Béziers, Agde, Marseillan, Mèze, Balaruc, Frontignan, Sète, Palavas) and in a city of Gard (the Grau-of-King). The test queen is the famous Grand Prix of Saint-Louis to Sète around the August 25th (since 1743), but a points score over the season (since 1962), a championship of France (since 1927) and a Coupe de France (since 1963) also exists in four categories of weight and age: Heavy, Average, Seniors and Juniors.

The heavy boats propelled by eight to ten oarsmen pass each other on the right. In addition to the oarsmen, two musicians (drum and oboe) and the “quartermaster owner”: the cox. The jousters are ridden on a platform being located at nearly three meters of water, the tintaine. On the low part of the tintaine, the jousters are held of the next tournaments.

A jouster in position is in slit-before. No the position of wide variation in Languedocien tournaments. It is a tournament in force, the more so as the jouster carries one (very) heavy 70 height cm bulwark (shield) for 40 cm of width and a lance of 2,80 m of the other hand. Before 1920, the bulwarks were even larger (20 cm height moreover) and heavier. The winner is that which remains in place on the tintaine after the attack. A completely white behavior is obligatory for all jousters. The port of the socks (white) is obligatory.

Method of Provence

This method of tournament is divided into 2 committees:

that of Provence includes/understands 7 companies: Istres, Fos-sur-mer, Estaque, Martigues, Saint-Chamas, Port-de-Bouc and finally Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône.
the committee of Coast-in Azur includes/understands 9 companies: Ciotat, Sanary, Saint-Mandrier, Seyne, Saint-Raphaël, Frejus, Agay, Théoule

The tournament of Provence is a combat on water between two people being each one on a boat, in top of a plate called into of Provence (teinteine) and play drank it consists in sending its adversary to water by means of a lance. Each jouster is protected by a drill plate out of wooden and holds in the left hand a witness who must prevent it from catching the lance of his adversary.

There exist some additional rules, in particular that not to have the feet joined to the moment striking, indeed the jouster places his left foot in front of a white line and its right foot behind this line, if the right foot of the jouster crossed the white line at the time of striking it is disqualified with the profit of its adversary.

The Tournament Of Provence is a sport of impassioned. Practiced May at September, this sport of force, brought together in the beginning only the men but today, it attracts the female one more and more.

The tournament of Provence is regarded as most violent of the five methods of French tournament because the jouster does not await the contact, it is him which will seek it while being thrown on its adversary.

Lyons method and givordine

the tournaments Lyons and givordine are practiced especially in the valley of the Rhone, more generally of Digoin to Avignon, but also in Paris region and on banks of the Lot and the the Loire.

There exist four seniors categories (light, average, cruiser-weight and heavy), then appeared the juniors categories (less than twenty years, separated then into light and heavy), and juniors (less than sixteen years, separated into light and heavy since 1998). 1988 saw the appearance of critériums of the young jousters, making clash children from eleven to thirteen years with material adapted to their age. This tiny category is, it also, separate into light and heavy.

Since 2000, one also attends the development of the female tournament in the methods Lyons and givordine. A long time famous too constraining for the women, in the direction where the impact on the chest and the articulations is very violent, the women officially can from now on since 2003, to take part in their own competitions. They are separate in two categories: Fines and Elegant. They practice with lances of 14 feet.

the lances go from 14 feet (4,6 m) to 18 feet (6 m) for the cruiser-weight and heavy seniors. The jouster is camped on the back platform of the boat, named tabagnon. A “bourron” being used to him as hold for its right hand tightens the right thigh to him. The drill plate, left shield, is maintained thanks to a strap enclosing the neck and the left shoulder to him, while an other strap much shorter passed in its left hand. It must hold its lance of the two hands, without releasing it during the course of the master key. It should not either touch the tabagnon with another part of the body only its two feet under penalty of being at once “wet” to have “brick”. It moreover is obliged to prick in the central square of the unfavourable drill plate, called “nine”.

There exist two positions which the jouster can adopt. The first, known as “broken leg”, is oldest. The right foot fixed on the block located at the back of the tabagnon, right leg tended and left leg slightly folded to the front one. This position was the only one during the first part of the history of the Rhone-native tournaments. Nevertheless, little by little the jousters stretched themselves more and more, requiring a greater flexibility (from where the need growing for drive), and leading in the long term to the second position. The second posture is known as “tended leg”. It appeared with the beginning of the year seventy before spreading in the Eighties. The jouster is practically with the wide variation without to touch the tabagnon (see higher). This position, if it lowers enormously the center of gravity making thus the jouster harder to beat, requires a drive supported as well in flexibility as in musculation. Generally, the initial jousters adopt a position leg folded before adopting a lower posture at the end of a few years.

the difference between the Lyons method and the givordine holds primarily in the side of crossing of the boats. The Lyoneses cross on the left while the givordins cross on the right. It goes without saying that this difference modifies the balance of the jouster on the tabagnon, complicating the passage of a method to another. The companies, if they often practice the two tournaments, preserve their method of predilection all the same.

There exist several competitions. With dimensions remaining the championship of France, into individual, which is held like a cut: eliminatory phases, semi-final and finale (to four). Always into individual, but only in league the Rhone-Alps, there is the classification at the points on all the regional competitions of the season. There is finally the cut of France by teams, where each club engages a jouster by category.

Alsatian method

It is with the Middle Ages, when valiant knights and proud lords clashed with horse and in armours which the combat of tournaments began.

At that time, Strasbourg, European crossroads, knew an important river traffic and they are two important commercial corporations, the Boatmen and the Fishermen who are at the origin of the Alsatian Water tournaments. The latter not having neither horses, nor armours, made use of their boats and organized tournaments.

Two great demonstrations of tournaments are recorded in Strasbourg, the first October 7th and 8th 1744 at the time of the visit of the King Louis XV and the second, for the arrival of the Joséphine empress, in the Living rooms of the Castle of Rohan.

on July 20th, 1852, of the Tournaments takes place in Strasbourg for the inauguration of the railroad Strasbourg-Paris with the presence of prince-president Louis Napoleon.

the method of Alsatian tournament is the method practiced not only by companies of the Paris region, Area Orléanaise, North, the North-East of France, but also by a great number of companies German, Austrian, Belgian and Swiss.

the boats, operated by four oarsmen and barred by a `captain', using a `stachelrime' (oar similar to a paddle and being used as oar of control surface, but which with the characteristic to comprise at the base two metal peaks intended to give off the boat against an obstacle or the bank) have, because of their length, approximately 10 m for a width of 1.40 m, their low height on water, and their speed, all the elegance of the boats reserved for the competitions of oar. Rotation jouster-oarsmen, being exerted within a team of 5 men, gives to this method an eminently sporting character.

the jouster, behind tended right leg, left leg ahead bent knee, is held on a small platform called `glass of bier' assembled with the back of the boat. It is armed with a lance which it holds with the two hands, left on before cross-piece of the lance, line on the back. The lance, long 3.50 m is finished by a leather plug.

the jouster does not carry any protection of the style bulwark or drill plate, barefeet, equipped with shorts and a shirt to the colors of the company, it is `naked chest' which he faces the blow of lance of his adversary.

the jouster having launched his adversary must make twice turn its lance above its head, under penalty of losing the two points which its victory confers to him.

In the tournaments of tournaments, the cox holds a key position. Not only charged with operation of boat, which is not obvious when it is a question of making cross two boats with less than 20 centimetres one of the other by maintaining their roads perfectly parallel, they are in more responsible for the safety of the jousters and the oarsmen.

the Alsatian method is dissociated completely by aligning four oarsmen sitted the ones behind the others and with horse, on a single central bench. Each oarsman is equipped with only one oar held on the gunnel by a lady of stroke. Another characteristic, the Alsatian oarsmen disarm their oars and vertically draw up them inside the their boat, which does not miss elegance.

Parisian method

Practiced on the Seine and the Loire and their affluents. No the shield here, just a drill plate stuffed for the jousters. The boats are motorized.

made difficult A long time by the distance of the various companies of tournaments, a championship of France is set up in 1980. Four categories: heavy, cruiser-weight, average and light. A female championship of France is born in 1981 in two categories: light and all categories.

Other methods

There exist many other methods of water tournaments practiced in France. Let us quote here the tournaments cognaçaises, the tournaments of Accolay, the tournaments of Merville and the various Breton tournaments.

External bonds

French federation of Tournaments and Nautical Rescue ''''' FFJSN '''''
''' Joutes.com ''': the site of the Languedocien tournaments
''''' lesjouteurs.com: ''''' The Site of the Gold Bulwark and the Languedocien Tournaments
Joutaternay.com: site of the tournaments givordine and Lyons
Alsatian Method: the site of the Dolphins of OSTWALD

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